The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Berberis plant botanically known as Berberis thunbergii and hereinafter referred to by the cultivar name ‘Orange Torch’.
The new Berberis cultivar is a naturally-occurring sport of GOLDEN TORCH ‘Torchd'or’, not patented, characterized by its yellow and yellow-green colored foliage typically having pink-red tips in autumn, and moderately vigorous, compact, narrowly-upright growth habit. The new cultivar was discovered as a side shoot and selected during July 2007 in a controlled environment in La Menitre, Maine et Loire, France.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar by terminal stem cuttings since July 2007 in La Menitre, Maine et Loire, France and Mount Angel, Oreg. has demonstrated that the new cultivar reproduces true to type with all of the characteristics, as herein described, firmly fixed and retained through successive generations of such asexual propagation.